


all my stars lead me to you

by heirlooms



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 01:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5987929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heirlooms/pseuds/heirlooms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>but then she looks at harper, and she decides, screw the stars. she's got the galaxy right in front of her. / harper x katy, background lucaya & riarlie</p>
            </blockquote>





	all my stars lead me to you

They first meet on the parent-teacher night for tenth graders. It’s on a cold Friday night, much colder than a September night usually is, and Maya is dragging Katy down the hallway. An arm is looped around her mom’s as she chats animatedly about a project she’s working on- an artistic interpretation of the fairies in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” 

She speaks of dainty fairies dancing by a moonlit lake, light from the sky and the stars glistening onto their pale skins, giving them a graceful but haunting look. She speaks of Oberon and Titania, Maya’s free arm making gestures in the air as she describes the fabric and texture of Titania’s dress, the gaunt shadows she plans on using to accentuate Oberon’s emotions. 

Katy nods along with a meek smile because truth be told, she remembers nothing about the play. Only that everyone fell in love with everyone, and fairies were assholes.

Maya stops speaking when they arrive at a door, Room 127. The label on the door reads: Harper Lee Burgess, English 002. Katy recognizes the name from back in eighth grade and raises an eyebrow in curiosity. Did all these kids have the same teachers from middle school through high school?

“Yeah, I know. Her name is Harper Lee and she’s an English teacher. Convenient, right?” Maya comments, sounding almost amused. Katy nods along and knocks the door, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans. A voice tells them to come in and Maya pushes the door open with her shoulder, jerking her head in greeting to her teacher.

The woman in question, a brunette with bangs and a motorcycle leather jacket draped on her chair, jerks her head up at the sound of the door sliding open. She stands up and smiles, eyes bright and friendly, and shakes Katy’s hand as a form of greeting. The sleeves to her flannel are rolled up, and Katy briefly catches a geometrical rose tattoo on her arm. 

Harper sits back down on her chair, motioning for the two blondes to sit in front of her as she tucks a pen in her ear. She folds her hands and turns to Katy, her stance anything but menacing and the nerves she had about this conference subdues a little. She’s not exactly an expert on this whole parent thing, even after fifteen years.

“So, where should we start?” Harper quips, opening her drawer to pull out Maya’s files.

* * *

Katy didn’t mind late night shifts at Topanga’s. It was a vast improvement from being a waitress at the Nighthawk Diner, a job she got during her spiraling period of losing her first love who never truly loved her, after finding out she had to bear his child (she had thought it was the universe’s way of spiting her for being a naive girl who wore her heart on her sleeves and got crushed in the end).

She’s cleaning the coffee machine, pleased at the fact that there were only small puddles of coffee and no empty milk containers around the machine. The bell signaling some’s entrance rings. Smoothing her skirt, she turns around with her most dazzling Katy Hart smile and says, “Good evening, welcome to Topanga’s. What can I get you?”

The woman- Ms. Burgess, she realizes- crouches down and presses her face close to the shiny glass cover, eyes scanning the different pastries as she scrunches her nose. After a few minutes of pondering, Katy speaks up, seeing as the woman clearly didn’t know what she was going to get.

“I’d suggest the chocolate croissant or the red velvet cupcake. Maya always gets them with her friends, and the frosting is so soft. Like, as soft as a puppy’s fur. Seriously, I don’t get how Alison does it, she makes the best-” Katy widens her eyes, slapping a hand over her mouth. Looking up, she finds Harper smiling, her coat hanging from her arm as she brushes a piece of her bangs that fell out of place. Feeling flustered, she turns around, her face slightly red. She has got to stop doing that. “Sorry for uh, rambling. I-um, I’ll brew up some coffee while you decide!”

The cafe buzzes from the late night customers as Katy makes the cup of coffee, quick and easy. She turns around and places the coffee in front of Harper, waving her hands dismissively when the other women reached into her bag to pull out money.

“Don’t worry about it, my treat. My baby girl- Maya, I mean- has been more passionate about English lately, and it’s all due to you. She really likes you. So,” she slides the cup forward, “take this as my way of saying thank you.”

Harper raises her eyebrows in surprise, and smiles, fondness in her eyes at the mention of Maya. “Oh, thank you. Maya truly is an exceptional student, so I’m glad to hear that she likes me. The rest of the school year could’ve became really awkward if she didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Katy chuckles, scratching a spot behind her ear, a nervous habit of hers. “It would be real awkward if I just outed my daughter to her teacher.”

The two of them end up talking, just casually about what Maya does in and out of school. Harper tells her about Maya’s passionate rants about Romeo and Juliet’s relationship, and Katy tells her about her room always smelling like paint and tuna melts. Maya bursts through the door just as Harper returns from filling up her second cup of coffee, rambling something about Lucas and dodgeball and how “hair shouldn’t even count!” 

She stops abruptly at the sight of her mom and Harper, an eyebrow raised, before shrugging and plopping down between the two. Grabbing a vacant chocolate croissant sitting on a plate on the table, she turns to Harper to ask about some writing assignment Katy doesn’t know about.

The fact that Maya is being so casual around her teacher delights Katy.

* * *

The second night Harper comes in- because both women can admit that they do enjoy each other’s company- they talk about things other than Katy’s fierce and blonde daughter and by the third night, they’ve exchanged numbers and are on first name basis.

It surprises Katy how quickly the two of them befriended, really. She rambles and stutters awkwardly and has a tendency to add dramatics to her words, sometimes waving her pale arms to express a point. It’s something Maya also does, Harper told her once.

Katy tries to convince herself it was because she got better at socializing with others. Better job, better environment. It was true, of course, but the fluttering in her stomach every time the brunette throws her head back in laughter or scrunches her forehead as she gets into classic novel rants tells her that the reason for their immediate bond was not platonic.

* * *

One night, when she’s tired from her shifts and is complaining about a group of loud sorority boys she had to serve earlier that day, Harper asks her about the tattoo on her shoulder blade. She freezes in her seat, looks down at her outfit in realization. She had changed into an off-the-shoulder sweater, one that showed the godforsaken lines and dots inked onto her skin.

Sensing her discomfort, Harper shakes her head and offers a sheepish smile as a form of apology. She accepts it, and they fall into easy conversation again.

Harper finishes telling her a story about her nephew and the time he got to ride an elephant. At this point, Katy is leaning against the top of the orange couches, her head resting on her hand as her body is angled towards the other woman. Sighing and stretching out of her position, she grabs a cup of coffee at the swirling, brown liquid when she began to talk.

“The tattoo is of Scorpius, the constellation of my first…boyfriend. My first love, actually. We were on a road trip, just the two of us, and we had stopped in Arizona. I don’t remember much, but he told me his tattoo of Aquarius was his sister’s and he got it when she graduated college. Told me some bullshit story about how she was the only person he loved before me, or whatever.”

“He didn’t even have a sister, by the way,” she remarks, bitterness lacing her words as the dark memories she’s tried _sososo_ hard to repress came flooding back. “It was the constellation of the fiancée he was cheating on. With me. I didn’t know about any of that, and I was so enamored by his charm, I just decided to get his constellation as a tattoo. Stupid, right? I never saw him after the road trip, and a few months later I found out I was pregnant with his child.”

“It was Maya,” Harper states, not as a question. She nods shamefully and looks at Harper, fear, and embarrassment in her blue eyes. The café is silent for a moment, the only sound audible is the distant hum of New Yorkers stumbling around the city and buses in the area. Harper places a hand on her leg, a gesture of pity or comfort, she doesn’t know. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I guess I should probably return the favor,” Harper say, rolling up her right sleeve, revealing the rose tattoo Katy recognizes from parent teacher night. Katy says nothing as she listens to Harper speak, the flickering streetlight outside the bakery window casting shadows on her face, making her sorrowful expression stand out.

Stories are often what bring people together. People relate, people sympathize, people grow and people learn from them.

After letting go painful pieces of their past to each other, they become closer. Neither woman knew how or why- they just knew.

* * *

(Harper speaks of a tight-knit family, living in an apartment of two bedrooms with four people in a neighbourhood far from wealthy. She speaks of being fourteen and having dual working parents that don’t come home until 11:00 PM and the kids are fast asleep on beds and pull out couches, because they can’t afford mattresses for everyone. She speaks of her siblings: Jane, a sweet little girl who liked putting on tutus to reenact Swan Lake and making flower crowns from dandelions; Charlotte, two years younger but just as mature, who blasted Top 40s music around the apartment and took games like kickball and Jenga way too seriously; Fitz, a senior in high school at the time and the only one who knew the extent of their financial state, who gave up his bed and leftover spaghetti for his little sisters, who had gone off to get an education to earn money for his family.)

(Her voice breaks as she talks about a cliff, a car accident, and roses being Fitz’s favorite flower.)

* * *

They hang out more after that night, and soon enough they’re best friends. Harper comes over often, staying for dinner and talking with Maya about books and her life. Maya confides in her when coming up with nicknames for Lucas, she asks her advice about an issue her and Riley have to face, she even gossips to her about how Zay and Farkle are totally doing it behind the group’s backs. She even teams up with Maya to give tips to Riley about her relationship with Charlie, the cute kid in her class who she has developed a maternal instinct for.

Harper quickly becomes an important figure in Maya’s life, and so she becomes an important figure in Katy’s life as well. The Harts were a package deal, whether you liked it or not. 

The once dull and simple energy that was the Hart apartment was livelier now, and it felt more like home than just a place to live in. There would be books scattered on their worn brown couch, or on the table next to an empty box of microwaveable mac n’ cheese. Harper has her own umbrella in their umbrella stand, and Katy even tells her where they hid the extra key.

(“Under the potted plant? Really?” “Shut up.”)

* * *

It’s with the comfort of shadows at night when Katy shares her fears with Harper.

The raindrops patter loudly against their shitty windows, and the wind being blown through the cracks between the windows and the wall makes the living room cold as hell.

She shares her fears about losing the apartment. Working at Topanga’s has made things better, she’d like to think, but the holes in the wall, the leaks in the roof and the dwindling of her bank account tell a different story.

She fears for Maya and her future, because universities are expensive these days and if they can’t even afford to have a fresh stock of food in their fridges, or go a week without finding a new hole in their wall and in their hearts, how could she ever pay for her daughter’s education?

But mostly, she fears that Maya will love. That she will give her whole heart to somebody and they’ll crush it in their bare hands, blowing the dust into her lungs and shutting her down from the inside.

Because that’s what happened to her. And she can’t- won’t let it happen to her daughter own daughter, the one person she promised to protect from this world. 

Harper eyes her as she unconsciously reached for her shoulder blade, tracing the constellations on her back, a sign of a burden she’s gotten used but will never get over. Not really.

* * *

The extra key comes in use for Katy’s birthday. It’s the middle of March and it’s drizzling outside when Harper walks into the apartment, greeted with distracted “hello’s,” by Maya and her friends. They’re crowded around a table, a disastrous amount of papers and plates of pizza spread across the wooden surface.

Placing her bag down by the door, she raises an eyebrow, her tone and facial expression suspicious. “What are you kids doing…? Where’s Katy?”

“We’re planning a birthday party for Maya’s mom!” Riley chirps, holding up a sketch of a birthday cake that was undoubtedly Maya’s work. The cake was surrounded with swirls and flowers, and chocolate leaves were scattered around the words “Happy Birthday!”

“Maya thought you’d like to help us plan it,” Lucas explains, an arm wrapped around Maya’s shoulder as he gestures towards the small blonde in his arms. She nods in confirmation. 

“If you’d like to, of course,” she quickly adds. We just need someone to buy the cake- it doesn’t have to be this design, but…I’m sure mom will appreciate it.

Strangely touched that the kids included her in the plan, she agrees to help them. Since Katy still works for three hours after school ends, Harper comes over immediately after school. She orders the cake and lets the decorations be stored at her house, because no one would expect her to be in on it.

On the night of the party, Harper is assigned as the person who will distract Katy while kids and the Matthews’ set up. It wasn’t really hard, since she was a rambler and all Harper had to do was get her heated up about a topic.

The look Katy’s gave her when they walk through her apartment, shocked and then immediately tearful, made her feel something she hadn’t felt since eleventh grade, with a boy who joined the book club for his sister loved football more than he loved her.

Shaking her head, she lightly nudges Katy. 

Fitz’s face pops up in her mind, reminding her that falling in love came with a price, sometimes the price being your own life.

(He didn’t just fly off the cliff because he was driving. He flew off the cliff because he was driving across the state to see his long term girlfriend.)

* * *

“Having fun?” Harper greets, sliding over a slice of cake as she dug into her own. The vanilla melts into her mouth and she nearly moans. She was impressed, these kids knew how to pick a cake.

Katy is beaming when she nods, her hand wrapped around a locket Maya got her. She didn’t expect a gift, let alone a party for god’s sake. She was just planning to stay in with Maya and pig on Italian food as they marathoned the Harry Potter movies. Maybe invite Topanga or Harper.

Riley told her about how she helped, her doe eyes lively as she floated around in a flowy pink sundress and a Minute Maid juice box in her hand. She made it a point that Maya was the one who arranged it, putting extra emphasis on the blonde’s name, even though everyone knew she was the one who actually put it together.

Maya may have had the idea, but Riley was just better at planning events.

Tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, Katy munches on her cake as she surveys the room. “Elastic Heart” blasted from someone’s iPhone, stuck in a red cup to amplify the sound. Riley and Maya were singing and dancing around, a whirlwind of blonde and brown as they sing about unable to conquer love and biting the dust, and Katy can’t help but scoff. Because yeah, she may have took a small sip of alcohol, but she’s an adult and it’s her birthday.

Charlie and Lucas chat quietly amongst themselves, but it’s no secret that both their gazes were locked on her daughter and her surrogate daughter. Their gazes are oh so loving, the wonder and admiration reflecting off of their eyes resembling stars.

She hopes, for all of their sakes, the clouds of smoke and regret shielding New York’s view of their night sky gets repelled far, far away from them. She doesn’t want to live long enough to see their lively eyes become glazed from stress and society and feelings.

Turning to Harper, who was staring at her with inspecting and curious eyes, she grabs both her hands. “Thank you,” she says earnestly. For the party, for making it possible for both her and Maya, for being here.

Harper beams, squeezing the other woman’s hands with her own. “You’re welcome.”

* * *

After the last guest leaves, Maya plops down next to Katy on the couch, a bag of Doritos in one hand and a blanket in the other. Streamers are hanging limply from the walls and leftover food is everywhere, and Maya’s dreading the cleaning up process. She turns to her mother with a smirk, playful with just a hint of mischief. She notices the movement out of the corner of her eye and she raises an eyebrow, curious at the look on her daughter’s face.

“So, when are you going to ask out Harper? Or are you already dating behind my back?” Blunt and to the point, just how Maya Hart does things.

Seeing the shell-shocked expression on her mom’s face and mistaking it for confirmation, she continues. “If you are, I’m totally cool with it. I love Harper, she’s one of my favourite teachers and people, and…I like having her around.” She finishes the last part quietly, playing with a white thread that hung off her blanket.

Katy continues to stare at her daughter in shock. Her and Harper? Dating? Sure, she sometimes felt butterflies around her and she accepted the fact that she likes girls a while ago, but never actually got around to dating any.

She opens her mouth to deny it, but nothing comes out. Would it really be so bad to date Harper? For starters, she got along great with Maya. Her daughter was her number one priority, there was no doubt. She was funny and quick-minded, intelligent and a lover of books. Her smile was safe and friendly. It reminds her of a warm spring day, where birds are chirping and mailmen stroll down the street, whistling a happy tune as they delivered messages. Of flowers blooming and plants growing, and it’s a calming sensation. Something she never had with Kermit, which is a good thing. Harper has this tendency where she scratched the skin under her ear when she was nervous, and she learns that she likes to reach for pillows when arguing about the inaccuracy of book to movie adaptations, and-

And when did she start noticing those things about Harper?

The realization must’ve hit her physically as much as it did emotionally, because Maya takes one look at her face and shakes her head, throwing her hair up in a bun. A blanket wrapped around her body, she stands up and starts texting someone, probably Lucas. She nudges Katy’s foot with her own, snapping her out of her daze, and smiles.

“You know,” she comments, feigning nonchalance. “I never thought my English teacher could possibly become my surrogate mom. Not that I’m complaining.”

With a huff, Maya walks back towards her room, her blanket wrapped around her tiny frame and her phone in her hand. Katy catches a glimpse of her smiling at her screen, the dimples on her cheeks appearing as her eyes fill with both amusement and adoration for the Texan boy. It was possible that something was going on between them and from the looks of it, it was a good thing.

Grabbing a mahogany coat and, unknowingly, the ladybug printed umbrella that belonged to Harper, she heads out the door. Her tattoo, a reminder of what love did to her once, burns into her shoulder and she hopes for once, just for once, the stars aligning the sky won’t leave to heartbreak and disappointment.

* * *

Katy kisses Harper the moment the door opens, her lips tasting like birthday cake and the blueberry chapstick she always leaves around the apartment, wearing her motorcycle jacket over a black t-shirt and red pajama plaids. She feels her tense and for a moment she’s worried, that she just made a huge mistake. But then she relaxes and kisses her back, and the explosion in her chest becomes cosmic; a wave of stars and meteors and asteroids. Everything all at once in the most beautiful way possible.

The long forgotten umbrella fell to the ground, water from the rain dripping onto the carpet of the hallway, but neither of them cared at that exact moment.

Pulling away, Harper chuckles lightly, her lips curling into a small smirk. “I’m not the one who’s supposed to be getting presents on your birthday.”

Katy scoffs.

* * *

Two years later, with a joyful smile and a ring on her finger, Katy covers up the Scorpius tattoo with a geometrical rose, an exact copy of the one on Harper’s arm. Harper and Maya are both there, the three of them a little family neither of them realized they needed. The tattoo artist holds up a mirror to her back, and she smiles for the first time in nearly twenty years at the sight of her tattoo.

* * *

You see, finding love wasn’t a thing written in a Hart’s stars. Katy’s mom couldn’t do it, her grandmother couldn’t do it, and her great-grandmother never even got the chance. 

That’s what she thinks as she lays on soft, green grass isn’t native to New York, but instead Pennsylvania. She’s drinking from a can of cream soda beside her daughter and her wife, who was currently doing the shittiest British accent ever as she does a dramatic reading of Dracula. She doesn’t need to look away from the night sky to know that Harper was doing something ridiculous, because Maya’s laughter could be heard into the night.

But then she does look at Harper, and she decides, screw the stars. She’s got her galaxy right in front of her.

**Author's Note:**

> shawn doesn't exist in this. also: this is barely edited, but i just wanted to get something out there
> 
> tumblr: harperbrgess


End file.
